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Valdosta 5k Race Recap

On Wednesday and Thursday of last week I made sure that I drank a lot of water so that I would be completely hydrated for the race on Friday. It has been really humid here early in the mornings so I knew I would be sweating buckets. We ate a light dinner Thursday night and tried to get to bed at a reasonable hour. Brice did not want to fall asleep (he was too excited from playing with his cousin for the short time she was at our house) and then did not sleep well that night. I woke up with a horrible headache feeling like I had barely slept. I had a shot of espresso, a piece of toast with jelly, and a little bit of water at about 6:30. Instead of doing the smart thing and laying out all my gadgets the night before I waited until we were supposed to be leaving the house to find my watch and my headphones. I knew where my watch was, but the headphones required a little more searching. I went to turn on my watch and it said “low battery” <– cue the panic attack. Then all of a sudden it showed it had charge. Not sure what was going on there. I did lay out my outfit the night before to make sure my red, white and blue gear was clean! I borrowed Colin’s Halo band for my red and I’m a fan!! I think I’ll be getting my own (not red!) Halo band soon.

The race wasn’t very far away from our house, and parking was a breeze. We did get there later than we wanted to though. We picked up our race numbers and I turned my watch back on to use for my warm up. As it was finding satellites it showed that my foot pod was connected. Another mini panic attack and yelling at Colin to take the foot pod off of his shoe because my watch was picking it up. I had hoped to get in a 10 minute warm up because it always takes me at least the first mile to feel comfortable and find my rhythm. I was able to get in maybe a 5 minute warm up before they were saying the Pledge of Allegiance, a prayer, and singing the National Anthem. I could have kept warming up during this, but that just felt wrong, especially since it was the 4th of July. There’s always time for a pre-race family photo!

Right after our picture and handing Brice over to my parents we had to line up for the start. We made our way towards the front and then I started thinking to myself “oh great she’s here, and her and her!” The speedy women who beat me in my previous 5k were all there! This was good though because they would help me push myself. The race started perfectly on time, right at 7:30. The weather was perfect that morning. Nice and cool (well high 70s which is cool in south Georgia during the summer) and not too terribly humid. A couple minutes in I checked my watch out of curiosity and it said I was running a 12:35 pace. I knew that was WAYYY off but it was okay because I had hired a personal pacer for this event. He’s very expensive and sometimes he doesn’t listen very well. However, he gets the job and I do have to live with him for the rest of my life. 🙂

During the first mile my thoughts were something like “Man I feel like I’m flying” “I wonder how fast we’re going” “I wonder if they’ll have donuts at the finish” “One mile done already??” We ran our first mile in 7:11, my legs felt awesome but I felt like I still had a little chest congestion that I need to get cleared up ASAP. During the 2nd mile my thoughts were more like “oww, side stitch” “Why does my watch say I’ve only run .58 mile?” “are we there yet” “Why are we still going uphill?” This one we slowed down a bit and ran it in 7:44 because there were two big stretches of uphill. During the 3rd mile I had no thoughts other than just keep moving, don’t think just run. This one we ran in 7:25 and it took a lot for me to keep pushing my legs onward. I was drenched in sweat by this point and ready to get to that finish line. The last little stretch was an uphill climb but when I saw the clock it still was in the 22’s!!! I just kept my legs moving as fast as I could and crossed the finish line in 23:16.

As you can see, my watch went all kinds of crazy. It said I ran 1.82 miles, but at least the overall time was accurate. They handed out medals in the finishing chute to the top 25 males and females and everyone else got some sort of USA themed award (a car flag or bracelet were the two that I saw) They didn’t do any other awards ceremony but I did finish as the 8th female overall and was 1st in my age group!! I took 52 seconds off of my previous PR and it felt great. Well it felt great once it was over, I can’t say the same during those 3.1 miles! After finishing Colin was acting all sorts of upset so we went and did a little cool down jog. Cool down for me, he had to keep running because he was supposed to get in a 40 minute run. As we were jogging he asked me how far off from my PR that was and I said “What do you mean ‘how far off’?? I beat it by 52 seconds!” The whole time he was thinking I wanted to BREAK 23 and run it in 22 something. When in reality I wanted to break 24 and run it in 23 something.

Another race in the books and it was a great one at that! It’s always fun to get to run with Colin, aka have him push me until I think I’m going to pass out, and then have our little man waiting for us at the finish line. I think I would have been able to reach my goal of breaking 24 on my own, but I know I wouldn’t have run a 23:16 by myself. This just shows me that I am capable of so much more than I ever imagined. Only 16 seconds off of getting into the 22’s- can you guess what my next goal is??

That is the face of a super happy yet completely exhausted runner right there!